NY’s Bail Reform Law had one purpose: to make sure that folks awaiting trial were not being held in custody simply because they could not pay the amount of bail set on them. And it worked since it was enacted over 19,000 accused individuals were given their freedom. Here’s an example of why it went […]
The Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District on Monday, overruling Lemon v. Kurtzman, a 1971 case laying out how the government must keep its distance from religion. Just another long-standing precedent thrown out by the 6-3 conservative majority that is rolling back, at break neck speed, protections and rights long fought […]
I am not going to write directly about the Dobbs decision. There will be enough legal scholars brighter than me dissecting it over the next few months and years. Instead, I want to talk about what’s next. And that is the likely obliteration of the right to privacy as a concept. The Right to Privacy […]
The Bill of Rights begins with this first sentence of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first phrase is known as the Establishment Clause and the second as the Free Exercise Clause. For centuries, when these two clauses were in conflict, […]
Two weeks ago I wrote an article letting readers know that a California Appeals Court ruled that a “bee” was a “fish” under that State’s environmental law. (https://courtroomstrategy.com/2022/06/ca-ct-a-bee-is-a-fish/). Well, now NY’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, has ruled that an elephant does not have the same right s to habeas corpus relief that a […]
It should be clear by now that we are dealing with a SCOTUS bench that does not place great weight on individual rights and especially on the rights of the accused. Today in Shinn v. Martinez, a 6-3 (guess who) SCOTUS decision made it even harder for an incarcerated individual claiming innocence to be heard […]
Listening to the oral argument today in the case involving Coach Joseph Kennedy from Bremerton Wash. I can read the writing on the wall. A door is going to be opened in the solid wall that prohibits prayer in schools. To me, the US Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed to be searching for a way […]
Today is GIDEON DAY. I know most people don’t celebrate it but On March 18, 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the 6th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed that Mr. Gideon and all others facing serious criminal charges have the right to a lawyer, whether or not they can afford to hire one. Clarence […]
When Robert Dennis Wayne Hope was 22 years old, in 1980, he went on a robbery spree. Using a handgun he robbed five stores. No one was injured. He was sentenced to 80 years to life. After a few years in a maximum security Texas prison, he and another inmate slipped through a hole in […]